| The Queensland Railways public timetable included many tables for branch line services, all with a titles like “Mary Valley Branch” or “Gayndah-Monto Branch”. The system was big by any standards, with the North Coast main line extended over 1,000 miles, and three inland railways of 500 to 600 miles each, plus oodles of branch lines. All this had to be financed by a small Treasury before the bonanza of coal and mineral royalties. Money was really tight. Whereas tracks on the standard and broad gauge systems were usually laid at the minimum with 60lb per yard rails, on the QR 50lb rail was common, and many branch lines were laid with 40lb rails. This placed severe restrictions on locomotive power, as a 9 ton axle load was tops, with some lines limited to 8 tons. Track condition kept speeds low, for not only were rails light, but ballast was rudimentary and the climate unforgiving. Over half the QR is within the tropics, and several lines reach well into the dry outback. They have more than their share of the “droughts and flooding rains” which are our lot in this old land.
With the exception of World War II, traffic density in Queensland was low, with almost no heavy hauls, so small engines were adequate. There were hundreds of little PB15’s as they were the only “go anywhere” engine. The trouble is they couldn’t pull much, being only half the size of a small broad gauge 4-6-0. The 4-8-0 was adopted in 1903 and ‘perfected’ in 1920 with the superheated C17. These became favorites, the design also being adopted by the Commonwealth Railways as their NM class, one of which hauled the first train into Alice Springs. The QR built C17’s for 33 years; 227 of them! They also liked Pacifics. The first B18¼ was outshopped by Ipswich Workshops in 1926, and thereafter the design was built until 1958. They were a tad bigger than the eight coupled C17, with an axle load of 12 tons (about half that of “Heavy Harry”). Not many branch lines could carry them! While Mechanical Branches in the rest of the systems were busy during the Thirties and Forties, Ipswich just tinkered with their two favourites. But eventually they had second thoughts, and before the steam era ended Beyer Peacock received orders for 30 very handsome and modern Garratts. Paradoxically, this collection of pictures made on half a dozen QR branch lines includes some of these big Garratts, which saw out their days hauling export coal; the Queensland resources boom began on a branch line behind steam. You needed a day or more for a trip on a Queensland branch line, and there were jokes aplenty about the trains. And what trains! Steam locomotives with pepper pot domes and sedan cabs, painted green, or brown, or black, or bright blue. Diesels painted white with sun visors, engine crews with waistcoats, station masters in pith helmets, carriages with ornate platform ironwork, brakevans with accommodation for cattle, and a public timetable with detailed and macabre instructions about the transport of corpses and coffins! And what other Railway had a locomotive classification like BB18¼? It wasn’t called the Quaint and Rattly for nothing! An excellent online source of information about QR steam may be found at http://www.qrig.org/ |
Before the Tourist Boom |
Unpleasant Memories |
Slow Train to Nowhere |
Shot in the Dark |
Ipswich's Answer |
Brown Bomber |
Go Anywhere Engine |
Elevenses |
Australia Day |
Snake Country |
Gayndah Through Car |
Waistcoats |
Everything Necessary |
Beautiful Crossing Loop |
Two In The Loop |
Novel Solution |
Drama on Dawes Range |
My Hat! |
Big Headlight |
Rejected Improvement |
Coaling a Coal Hauler |
Big Brown Beauty |
Overpowered |
Wasting Time |
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